California dreaming

I must start by apologising for the tardiness of this post - I see it has been more than a fortnight since the last. Our excuse is that we have been entertaining! We were joined by Jen's sister, Sarion and mum, Debbie for a week-long road-trip from San Francisco to San Diego. But let's not get ahead of ourselves - I'll pick up the story from where I left off, at Yosemite.






From Yosemite in Eastern California's Sierra Nevada mountains, our route to the coast wound like a rollercoaster along the serpentine roads of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. We didn't stop to sample the region's wine, but on reaching the Pacific at Stewarts Point, we celebrated with a beer or two.








Over the next few days we camped, walked and cycled on the coast, but never actually dipped more than our feet into the sea, as the water's actually pretty parky around that area! The hippies and surf-bums we met on the coast made us feel right at home - Grayham even made friends with the seagulls in Bodega Bay (where, scarily enough, the film "The Birds" was made).






We had arranged to meet up with Sarion and Mum in San Francisco on sunday 26th september. By a happy coincidence one of my former PhD buddies, Katie Gapper, happened to be near 'Frisco for work purposes at the time (applying biosystems or some such thing), so we met up on the friday night for a very pleasant dinner. Unfortunately neglected to commerate the occasion by taking a photograph. D'oh!






The next day we visited a NASA research base near Stanford University. We arrived just in time to see an airship coming in to land - it seems it's quite a palaver getting one of those things out of the air; it took about 25 ground crew half an hour to secure it well enough for the passengers to disembark.






The next morning, we met Sarion and Mum in their hotel near San Francisco Airport. They had had a bit of a nightmare flight with American Airlines the previous evening, but were nonetheless bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for a mosey around the city. After catching the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) train in, we found ourselves an excellent brunch in a hammed-up Americana-themed diner (bedecked in Halloween-alia of course).






A walk through town took us up the steep hills for which 'Frisco is so famed, giving us a splendid view from the top of the old prison on Alcatraz Island, eerily shrowded in mist.










After walking around Fisherman's Wharf, we decided to save our legs and ride back on one of the famous cable-cars.









Mum and I sat for the noisy and frankly hair-raising ride back to the BART station. However, Sarion and Andy seemed to think standing on the running boards all the way back, as we went up and down, up and down, up and down was a great laugh!










After a day in the city, we set off in Grayham down the coast towards San Diego. Each night Mum and Sarion stayed in Motels, while Andy and I kipped in the back of the G-dog. After a night in Monterey, we visited the truly awesome Hearst Castle.

Built by Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, between 1919 and 1947, and used to entertain members of the Hollywood elite, the sprawling complex houses an uncountable number of antiquities from Europe and the Middle East. Egyptian sphinxes recline in garden-beds, medieval French tapestries line the rooms and Roman columns surround the enormous pool.








Having read about the place in the guide-book, I had expected the place to be a vulgar jumble of ill-matched, conspicuously expensive plunder from the old world. However, I found that it all managed to hang together quite well, and I rather liked the effect produced. A testament to the skill of Hearst's long-suffering architect, Julia Morgan.










After a night further down the coast, in Santa Barbara, we left the sea to head inland and into the San Bernadino Mountains. Here we stayed in a lovely lodge on the shore of Big Bear Lake.









The next morning we had the best breakfast EVER, at the Grizzly Manor Cafe. The ladies had ma-hoosive pancakes, while Andy had something that was called, and I quote the menu here: "The Mess - don't ask".








As well as eating and visiting castles, we managed to spot a good assortment of wild critters along the way. Sarion expertly caught this shot of one of the hummingbirds we saw in the beautiful gardens of the Mission at Carmel-by-the-Sea. They move so quickly, I failed to get anything on film (or viewfinder, as it is these days!).








At San Simeon we saw an enormous colony of seals sprawled along the beach. They're not dead - just sleeping!










Having spent 5 nights on the road, we arrived in San Diego. The original plan was for us to meet my American Grandma and Grandpa here, but unfortunately they were unable to make it due to ill health (everything's fine now though, so fear not). Although we missed G & G, we enjoyed our 4 nights in San Diego immensely. The photo shows the view from Andy and my hotel window over La Jolla Cove.






While in San Diego, we spent some time in Balboa Park, which is a large complex of museum and gardens near the city centre. We went to galleries and gardens galore, but my personal fave was probably the botanic house, specialising in bromeliads and orchids.










Andy's favourite was definately the Air and Space Museum - we had to drag him away!








Sadly, the time came to take Sarion and Mum to San Diego airport, from whence they flew to New Jersey to visit G & G. After waving them off, we headed out of the city and east to Joshua Tree National Park. "J-tree", as it's known locally, straddles the boundary between the low, hot Colorado Desert and the high, cool Mojave desert. It's the Mojave desert that is home to the species of yucca know as the Joshua tree, so named because the Mormons thought that the limbs resembled the raised arms of Joshua.








The desert was delightfully cool, and home to a surprising variety of plant life, including these cholla cacti.








We camped among the giant granite boulders that litter much of the northern half of the park.









Although there are no bears in J-Tree, it seems there's always some form of animal-life out to get you in America (not to mention the plant-life - those cacti are mean!). We spotted this tarantula walking past our van - arrrghh! I suspect the situation won't improve in Australia.





Of course the other great excitement of the last few weeks has been the big election. We are delighted that Mr. Obama won the day as, I suspect, are 99% of Europeans. Until about a month ago, I honestly held out little hope for the blues (well, I guess we were in uber-conservative Utah til a month ago!). Speaking to scores of Americans from many walks of life over the last 4 months, I became rather depressed to realise that the battle between Democrats and Republicans really came down to a fight between the well educated and the poorly educated (- in the bible belt states, I would say between the educated and the indoctrinated). Happily though, the intelligence and common sense of the majority won over the anti-intellectualism of the conservative right minority.

We are now heading north with great excitement because we're going skiing!! Mammoth Lakes (where we got snowed in in the last blog entry) is now open for the ski-season. We're booked into a hotel for 5 nights from Sun 9th Nov and can hardly contain ourselves - I just can't wait! Tune in soon to find out how we get on...

From low to snow

Having been towed back to Pahrump, Nevada to have Grayham's fuel pump replaced, we were again on the wrong side of Death Valley. It was with some trepidation that we set off once more to descend the 3000 feet into the valley and then climb 5000 feet back out again. As we had already found to our cost, the combination of high temperatures (100F this time of year in the valley) and lengthy inclines has the tendency to stress cars to breaking point. The easy part was of course getting to the bottom. This time we made no stops for photos (as you can see, I just pointed the camera out of the window as we drove!) – we just wanted to get to the other side.

The ascent up the other side was going well. But with the summit just a stone's throw ahead, a crunching sound was heard from the engine. With a shudder, the power steering gave up, but cool as a cucumber, Andy steered us to the side of the road, just as the radiator boiled over and spewed its guts. Having diagnosed the problem as a broken bearing in a pulley wheel for the fan belt, we were debating how to proceed, when the two chaps we had camped next to the previous night pulled up beside us. We had told them of our fuel-pump woes back at camp, and now seeing us pulled up, they had rightly concluded that we were in trouble once more. They were heading home from an off-roading trip in a Jeep, which they now towed behind their pick-up truck (the Jeep is just out of shot in this photo). Happily, with a bit of creativity, Andy and the guys were able to bodge together a temporary fix for Grayham from the Jeep's parts! With gushing gratitude, we parted from our saviours and hit the road. In the next town - Lone Pine, California - we were able to buy the replacement part for just a few dollars. And with a rush of relief, we found ourselves west of Death Valley, at last!

Lone Pine sits at the base of Mount Whitney, which at 14,505ft is the highest peak in the contiguous USA. The foothills are littered with bizarre and ancient rock formations formed by the turbulent geology of the region. In the visitor centre, we picked up a guide leaflet for a short driving tour, on which one was supposed to be able identify rock formations resembling various animals, mythical figures etc. (e.g. “the bear”, “batman”, “three old women”... you know the sort of thing). So we trawled the area following the route the leaflet described - it was a pleasant drive and viewing the contorted rocks was well worth the effort. However, I began to suspect we are lacking in imagination, as the two of us failed to conclusively identify a single formation from the leaflet, with the exception of that in the photo, named “the visible man”, which had helpfully been painted on!

From Lone Pine, we took the road north, following the valley at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. As we went north, the air became quite cool, a relief after Death Valley. Just south of Bishop, we stopped to warm ourselves in a hot spring.

By the time we reached Bishop, things had turned decidedly chilly. To our consternation, electronic road signs in Bishop informed us that the road ahead – the Tioga Pass Road, which we had intended to take into Yosemite, was closed due to snow. Furthermore, the next two passes over the Sierras (the Sonora and Monitor passes) were also closed. With these passes closed, the only way to get to the west side of the Sierras was to skirt around the mountains, which meant either travelling several hundred miles north, or several hundred miles south. Either way would take us a great distance from our intended destination of Yosemite. We hung around Bishop for a couple of days in a state of indecision, before making up our minds to go north. As the road north climbed in elevation, the temperature plummeted. When we reached the ski resort of Mammoth Lakes, it really looked like a ski resort, being blanketed in 6 inches of snow! You don't get icicles like those back home!

On our first night camping in the snow, the temperature plummeted to 7F (-10C). We were well prepared, though, and were snuggly warm in the back of the G-Dog, where we registered -6C.

After a day in the snow, we were informed that the Tioga Pass was to reopen. Moreover, the weather forecast for the rest of the week was warm, so the pass would stay open for at least a few days. At the base of the pass, we stopped at Mono Lake. Mono Lake is unusual in that it has several streams going in, but none coming out. In other words, over the course of a year, the water coming in is balanced by evaporation alone. Although the water evaporates, the dissolved substances carried by the water remain, the result being a very salty, very alkaline lake. In addition, local volcanic activity means that springs bearing calcium bubble up through the lake. The calcium reacts with the alkaline lake water to precipitate calcium carbonate, which forms bizarre underwater limestone towers known as “tufa” over the springs. The tufa are now visible at the lake edge because the lake level has dropped dramatically due to diversion of the streams that feed the lake, in order to provide water for Los Angeles. The unusual chemistry of the threatened Mono Lake also supports a unique food chain, topped by brine shrimp, which constitute a vital for food-source for migratory birds.

Then, we finally made the climb to the 9945 foot Tioga Pass, which marks the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park.

The Tioga road was clear, but there was still some snow on the verges. The cold wind whipping through this glacier scrubbed valley was enough to make Andy put his coat on – the only time so far this trip – he didn't even wear it in the snow at Mammoth lakes!

Going west, the Tioga Road dropped in elevation, allowing us to explore the forests and lakes of northern part of the park in the warm autumn sun.

A steep walk down the disused north-south road through the park took us to the Tuolumne Grove of giant redwood trees. These trees, the largest organisms on earth, occupy around 70 small, remote groves, all in the Sierra Nevada. Even after a century of study, scientists still puzzle over their highly patchy distribution. The trees are impossible to photograph effectively, being so massive and crowded by other trees, but you can get the idea from this dead trunk, into which a tunnel was cut in the late 1800s so that tourists could drive right through.

Our last stop in the park was Yosemite Valley, which is at the centre of the action; the area to which the majority of visitors flock. The wide valley is walled in on either side by a series of immense granite monoliths. The most highest and most famous of these is El Capitan, which rises 3593 feet above the valley floor. The photo shows Liberty Cap with Nevada Falls on the right, taken after a leg-shredding hike up the steep path snaking the valley wall.

After two nights in Yosemite valley, we left the park to head for the coast north of San Francisco, where we will complete our inland adventure and dip our toes in the Pacific.

This is just a fun pic that I thought I'd squeeze in – the economy might be crumbling, but Halloween must go on!

VEGAS baby!

We'd seen some crazy canyons by this point, but Grand Canyon most certainly lived up to its name. We visited to the less-crowded North Rim of the canyon and were pleasantly surprised to find lush forests lining the 60-mile spur road that lead to the rim (we had expected the place to be desert, like the surrounding area). Sitting on the edge, or hiking into the depths, the enormity of the thing was hard to contemplate. The geologic stories of some two billion years are written on the walls of the Canyon, starting at the base with the Colorado river, and ending a vertical mile above at the rim.

After a couple of days at GC, we moved on to Page, Arizona, where we camped on the beach of Lake Powell (it's called a lake, but it's actually a reservoir formed by the Glen Canyon dam on the Colorado River).

A guided tour into the workings of Glen Canyon Dam proved fascinating. The construction of the dam in the 1950s changed the surrounding desert ecosystem forever. The dam caused the warm, muddy and erratic waters of the Colorado River to flow cold, clear and constant, like never before. Native fish and plants perished, precious sediment ceased to be transferred downstream and Glen Canyon was destroyed. However, the hydro-electricity powers the region, and the water storage capacity allows people to actually live in the desert. When standing at the base of this marvel of engineering, one can't help but ponder how high the price of progress should be. On a lighter note, when we got to the base of the dam on our tour, we were amazed to see that they have planted a lush lawn at the bottom (apparently it helps stabilise the cooling matrix around the flow pipes)!

As we headed back west, we stopped at the remote Paria Canyon Wilderness Area to take what turned out to be a first rate hike a few miles into an awesome slot canyon (the slot actually stretches 43 miles and can be hiked in about 5 days). These narrow canyons are formed by the repeated fast-flowing flash-floods, which are characteristic of the region's weather. In this particular slot, deep pools of muddy water covered the floor periodically. With sheer walls on either side, the only way through the water was to wade. So epic was our adventure, we thought it deserved a title...

“Andiana Jones and the Mucky Slot”....?

or how about “Lara Croft - Slot Raider”...(ooh, matron)...?

(lame I know!). The magnificent Zion National Park was our next stop. On entering Zion Canyon, it becomes immediately obvious why the Mormons gave it such a name. The Virgin River, which carved the imposing red-walled canyon, nourishes verdant vegetation, creating a fresh and peaceful haven from the harshness of the surrounding desert.

The walls at the bottom of the canyon weep with rainwater that was absorbed into the porous rock at the top of the canyon some 1400 years earlier. Where the walls weep, magnificent hanging gardens sprout, like that in the photo, which was taken on a hike up the stretch of the river known as “The Narrows”.

After Zion, we left Utah for the last time to head for Las Vegas (yeah baby!). On the way we stopped at Lake Mead, the reservoir created by Hoover Dam. Completed in 1935, Hoover Dam was the engineering wonder of its age. It contains enough concrete to pave a road from coast to coast (or pave the entirety of Rhode Island! Poor old Rhode Island, it always gets done over in these analogies). Sadly for us though, the dam administrators have realised that being about the only non-gambling related tourist attraction in Nevada can be very lucrative, and have accordingly hiked the entry fee for the visitor centre and dam tour to extortionate levels. Though we didn't go inside, we could nonetheless appreciate the attractive art deco styling of the structure from the outside.

And then we went to Vegas! We actually booked into a hotel for the first time on this trip, as it was a mega-deal we found on the internet, which was actually cheaper than camping! Our hotel, called Stratosphere, was right on The Strip (the main casino drag). Each casino in Vegas has some kind of gimmick to pull the punters in. With Stratosphere, the gimmick was it's 108 storey tower with restaurants at the top.

Stratosphere also has three hair-raising fairground rides hanging off the top, one of which we rode. It was appropriately named “Insanity”! It hangs you off the edge of the tower and spins you like a top -arrgh!

The scale of the casinos and the lengths that they go to pull in the punters was something to behold. “Paris” casino, for instance had a half-scale eiffel tower...

while “New York, New York” casino was, well, just like Manhattan crammed into a Vegas city block...

and “Luxor” had a full-size sphinx and pyramid!

We saw pirate gun battles, lounging lions, musical fountain shows, gondolas on a river on the second floor and so much more. And with margharitas at $1 a pop, it would be rude not to have a couple!

After two nights in Vegas, we headed out of the air conditioned comfort of Stratosphere, and into the heat of California. Well, he made it to California without any troubles, but where do you suppose we might have the first problems with our beloved van, Grayham? The answer is the hottest place on Earth – Death Valley – a firey hell-hole 180 feet below sea-level. Marvellous!

After the AAA had towed us 60 miles to the nearest garage, Andy's diagnosis of a broken fuel pump was confirmed. Luckily the part was in stock and a few hours (and a wad of cash) later, Grayham was revived.

Once on the other side of Death Valley we will head for the coolth of the Sierra Nevada mountains and Yosemite National Park... Phew!

(If anyone can tell me how to sort out the spacing of pictures and paragraphs on this blog, please drop me a line! It doesn't look like this on the writing screen!!)